The Power of Teacher Workshops: Advocating for Better PD at Your School

Teachers have all experienced a professional development that is so way off target, or one that had nothing to do with what they teach or who they teach. We teachers can talk about having to sit in poorly-run, irrelevant PD like they are war stories.

Today, I teach teachers and design and facilitate a good number of teacher workshops. I'd like to share some things I've discovered -- through experience and research -- when it comes to PD.

Why PD Matters So Much

Research shows that teachers tend to teach the way that they were taught. That is, of course, until we gain new insights through experience and development.

And since education is always evolving, professional development is essential for teachers to enhance the knowledge and skills they need to help students succeed in the classroom. Educational psychologist and researcher, Lee Shulman described an elaborate, wide-range knowledge base for teacher education. This knowledge base includes content knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, curriculum knowledge, knowledge of learners and their characteristics, knowledge of educational context, ends, and purposes.

In the words of Aristotle: He who dares to teach must never cease to learn.

An added layer being that our profession is a unique one in that we don't work with things, but with people. Just like medical professionals (who, of course, also deal in people), we need to continually update, enhance, and reflect our current knowledge and skills base so we can develop a more effective practice. If a doctor said, "I don't need to go to any seminars and lectures ever again," you'd probably choose a new doctor.

Making PD Authentic

The key to an effective, quality workshop is this: PD planners and facilitators need to know as much as they can about the teacher participants and their needs and then strive to meet those very needs.

Let's define needs. They are a gap between what is expected and the existing conditions. A needs assessment, or needs analysis, is an examination of the existing need for training within an individual, group, or organization.

Encourage your principal, instructional coach, administrator in charge of instruction, whomever makes The Decision about how your school's professional development time and money is spent, to conduct a needs assessment before an after-school or weekend workshop.

A good place to start? Consider developing a general needs assessment survey using a Likert scale, 5-1: 5 = completely true to 1 = not at all true. Here are some sample statements so that teachers can rate themselves:

"I'm able to contextualize abstract ideas and concepts for students"

"I feel very knowledgeable of the content I teach"

"I know how to design a rigorous end-of-study assessment"

"The teaching strategies I select to use in the classroom support diverse learners and learning styles"

You might also create a needs assessment with very specific statements just about teaching English language learners, for example. Always include an area on the survey for teachers to write in any questions or comments.

Use the needs assessment results to guide planning, choice of materials, and other supports needed for the workshop. If the powers that be have an agenda item they would like addressed in the day, that's fine, but the bulk of the agenda has to primarily speak to meeting the needs of the group. Without this, there is danger of an irrelevant, frustrating, forgettable workshop (see war stories comment above). If the only rationale for an entire day's agenda is, "it comes from the principal/district," well, see war stories comment above.

No One-Offs, Please

Quick-fix, single-shot PD can often end up as information overload for teachers. And since the goals of these are so often focused on getting a large amount of information out in limited time, rarely do they include time on the agenda for processing, planning, and reflecting -- all essential.

The aim of a good teacher PD plan is to grow collaborative teams and build capacity by speaking to the specific needs of the individuals in the group (i.e. needs assessment first, authentic training activities/materials that speak to those needs next). Then, the facilitator/administrator provides continued support for the team as they develop new skills and understandings. Follow this philosophy and how will teacher workshops at your school ultimately look? The team will plan collaboratively, use research to guide their practice, and reflect and adjust on their own (no presenter necessary, only a facilitator, and one with a minor role).

Differentiate Workshops

Many beginning teachers start their careers with little professional support while they are required to carry a full teaching load immediately. Novice teachers may also be assigned to teach a discipline outside their area of training. There are veteran teachers who have a solid pedagogical practice but lack technology training, or need to update some aspects of their instruction. And there are many educators often in the middle who exhibit specific strengths in their teaching methods, while also having some weaknesses.

We talk about personalized learning environs in K-12, even in K-16, and we must apply this same thinking when it comes to professional development for teachers.

How has your school evolved it's professional development, creating time for relevant and authentic learning experiences for your teachers?

All considerations for professional development (PD) should flow from the premise that staff development should model what you want to see in the classroom. We strive to offer our students engaging, relevant, and rigorous instruction that supports students who will, over time, take responsibility for their learning. PD should apply those same goals to training teachers, staff and administration.

For more on that subject, see my post "A Guide to Designing Effective Professional Development: 15 Essential Questions for the Successful Staff Developer" http://bit.ly/r9KvgK

I couldn't agree more, Peter, that good PD models what we want to see in the classroom. Therefore, backwards planning beforehand, and then begin the workshop by tapping into prior knowledge of the teachers, using Bloom's to engage teachers in higher-order thinking activities throughout the PD, and then product(s) or process(es) as the outcome (closely aligned to your learning goals or objectives for the day).

Also, I keep a chart of all the strategies we use throughout a PD and then ask teachers to consider how they might use those with youngsters in the classroom.

Brilliant-- I love that the central focus of your PLC is enriching, research-based text, like Marzano. He is a favorite of mine and his six steps for teaching academic words have revolutionized vocabulary instruction in many clasrooms.

He's done both! Check out his website, Marzano Research Laboratory, for more information. He has several publications and also offers professional development services. I was lucky once to have the opportunity to see him present on teaching academic vocabulary.

Good luck!
Rebecca

[quote]Rebecca,

Has Marzano done any work on teacher development and evaluation? I thought I saw his name somewhere and I was wondering if it is worthwhile.[/quote]

This blog has brought so much insight for me as a teacher. I now realize the importance of professional development seminars, and how they should not be something that happens once in a while. These seminars are workshops should be something continuous so that learning will increase for the teacher. I think education departments should make these mandatory for their schools to have their teachers participate in workshops or seminars continously, and updates should constntly be given to state what the school is doing as it pertains to developing more professional teachers.

I believe that it is important for every school to have a Professional Learning Community. The PLC is a great opportunity for all teachers to learn and target the issues that they are facing. Learning new things must be an everyday thing. During my first years of teaching I always thought that a teacher was someone who knew it all and if not it was plain ignorance. As time went by, I learned that "education is evolving". The educational system is changing constantly, as well as the children. As teachers, I believe that we should always be updated. Now, I believe that in order to be an effective teacher one must continue learning. Learning from our colleagues can help us find strategies and techniques on how to improve the children's learning.